You're 100% right. Adam and Eve did have free will. Exactly. And look where it got them.
Since the fall, men don't have the option of choosing righteousness on their own. On their own, they will always choose to sin against God. What is needed is God's free gift of grace through the Holy Spirit to change a man from God-defiant to God-compliant.
The change from the natural man to the spiritual man is a supernatural act of God's will, not men's. He determines whom to regenerate by the Holy Spirit whose leading will then enable that man to believe in Jesus Christ to the saving of his soul.
"...these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
Believe to life, or life to believe?